Top 84 Quotes & Sayings by John Gourley
Explore popular quotes and sayings by an American musician John Gourley.
Last updated on November 21, 2024.
I love running and good running shoes.
The worst gift I have ever gotten on Christmas is going to see Tim Allen in 'The Santa Clause.'
I love Unknown Mortal Orchestra, who are from New Zealand, living in Portland.
A country is an individual in the world that represents a group of people, so I decided we would name our band after a country, and Portugal happened to be the one that popped up.
'Feel It Still' came around pretty much as organically as you can put a song together.
Weird Al was something that kids would listen to. It's funny, super funny, smart. It's just kind of jokey. I remember hearing 'Smells Like Nirvana' before hearing 'Smells Like Teen Spirit.' That's how it really worked. I think it's just such a cool thing how he introduced us to so many cool bands. Even Queen - 'Another One Rides the Bus.'
It's so perfectly Alaska to be like, 'Dad we're going to the Grammys,' and for him to be like, 'Oh, well that's great, Johnny. All right, gotta go back to work.'
Right after we recorded 'Satanic Satanist' and 'American Ghetto' here in Boston, we decided we'd grow our hair out. This is - was - like the Beatles thing. I wanted to see these pictures later in life.
Growing up, I just always doodled, which is the worst word for it. I would just draw things in class, get yelled at by my teachers, get my drawings taken away. That stuff happened all the time.
We tour, we do the distance from friends and family, not really knowing how to connect with people on the same level. I've understood now, as much as we tour, we live day-to-day, so our lives are much different than the people who stay at home and go home every night.
Some New York bands you'll see rocking Ones or Dunks and things like that, but it is weird that the sneakerhead thing has become so massive. Personally, I think it's really silly.
I think there are really great movements happening in Portland. It's nice being in a place that supports itself and stands on its own.
There's no making art for art's sake. You've got to make the best art you can.
My dad builds houses, and, for the earlier portion of my life anyway, we moved around quite a bit. It took us to some just really amazing places.
Basically, great directors know how to combine music with the scenes that they are working on.
Miles Davis and Felonious Monk, they're both great artists who enhance things.
My first concert was Pantera.
That's really important in a producer - a producer that can step up and play a keyboard, play a bass, play a guitar, and help you with things instead of just saying, 'I think this could be better.'
It's really hard to escape where you were brought up. Not that I would ever want to escape it.
We grew up in Alaska and will rep The North Face all day long.
Growing up, the only acts that came to us in Alaska were the big ones. The Mariah Careys.
I bought a book with guitar tabs and forced myself to learn. I would go to school and then come home and sit in my room for hours figuring out the songs.
Whether it be tour posters, album packaging, videos, stage design, etc., the visual aspect of music is very important to us.
Portland is where all the fringe groups went to escape. Where the outliers brought that DIY, punk rock attitude and made the city their own.
My favourite piece of music is actually 'The Dark Side Of The Moon' as a whole. For me, it's the most perfect and brilliant example of rock song writing.
If you don't have negative experiences, you have no way to gauge the positive ones, and you have no way to deal with it.
Nike is obviously more sporty than Adidas. I always associate Adidas with Beastie Boys and Run-DMC.
As a songwriter, it's good to have criticism, and I like objective opinions.
I like work, I like song writing, and I like the history of Atlantic Records. They've sat in the studio with so many artists - like Ray Charles, for example - and created something amazing. As a label, they seem to be great at growing bands rather than telling you how to do it.
I went to so many sleepovers where these parents were reading the 'Book of Revelation' before bed and things like that. I would listen to that stuff, and I would sit there and say to myself, 'If God is so great and so good, why is there this list of rules?' Like, you go to hell if you don't believe in him and hold him up above everyone else.
I see a lot of people say you just make the music you wanna make and just love what you do, and that is what we do, but I wanna write the best songs we can.
To me, sci-fi has the most amazing style.
Poor Ron Paul. He means well. He really does. But there's something about him. I don't know what it is. From falling victim to Sacha Baron Cohen's Bruno to that old-man shuffle, he just seems like kind of a... like kind of a sissy.
We went to Japan and stayed an extra day just to go shopping. New York is one of those places where we never get that. If we're there, we're working.
Levis are my go-to. Plain crew necks and jeans.
I would watch 'Sesame Street' and see neighborhoods and kids with other kids to play with, and I just didn't have that. You know, we were on a lake. We just didn't have that stuff.
I've never been the type of person that puts things on a shelf or, like, needs to clean my sneakers every day. I just wear what I like.
I was a shy kid growing up, and I liked the idea of playing under this alter ego: like, I could be Ziggy Stardust, but I also knew I could never be Ziggy Stardust.
To be an artist that is fully original, it doesn't exist.
The period in the name - huge mistake, I know. We didn't think about that. We never thought we were going to be written up in magazines. The second we saw it in print, like, what a mistake, man.
Music is something that you really have to want to do it, and there has to be a reason behind it.
I think we're pretty spiritual people, the band in general. We're not a bunch of hippies or anything like that, but we like to work together and work with people. We believe that positive energy is pretty necessary in life, although it's not always easy to maintain.
The Alaskan summers are one of the most amazing things you can see.
My dad just left high school in '69, went to Woodstock, and after half a year of college for architecture, just took off for Alaska. He bought a van and went straight into the mountains and built a cabin.
As much as we love an excuse to dress up, the red carpet is not the place.
Being robbed is a really great way of editing your belongings.
When we were kids, my favorite thing was coming to upstate New York where my family is from and hanging out with my grandparents' friends pre-Internet and them asking if we had stores or 'Do you have TV in Alaska?'
My dad just decided that he wanted to race sled dogs, and when he did that, he took us out of Wasilla, and we never really went back.
Money messes up everything. It ruins art. The second you start putting price tags on this stuff, it's... Art isn't for just the wealthy. It's for everybody to enjoy.
There are some athletes who I feel like are just looking for likes, and then there are people who are just real.
I'm just not into the shady side of the music industry. Give credit where credit's due.
For the people that don't know it, we've had members come and go from this band since the beginning. It's always been about collaboration, and it's been about just playing music with our friends.
Getting nominated for a Grammy is as high as it gets for us.
I grew up in Alaska, okay? My dad graduated high school and went straight to the mountains. He had $300 and staked a claim. He didn't even have enough to put a title on the land: just had the records that he bought before he moved.
We've always done what we do, and we go out and try and get better with each record we make.
Portugal. The Man, to me, doesn't have any real ties. We try to change things up with every album, really progress, and let things happen.
I've always been into thrifting. I'm a fan of finding unique pieces and having them tailored or altered.
It's silly to me to not be positive about rock advancing and growing. Really, we just want rock n' roll to be mainstream.
I feel like rock n' roll has become very tame.
We started playing music because of the Wu-Tang Clan.
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